Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

Sealthumping

ime you can push trump supporters pretty far by confronting them with the facts of this administration but only up until "but hillary would've been worse" which is a concession that trump is terrible but ultimately preserves their support. i hear this a lot in the form of, "well i don't even like trump but..." which admittedly weeds out his absolute die-hard fans (like the guy who tells me whenever he sees me that trump is the greatest US president and when i laugh he follows up with, 'well at least you agree he /is/ president, right?'). once you can replace trump with someone better (in their eyes - which is really the whole trick right there how to square that circle) a lot of them will move on willingly i think. the easiest way to co-opt trump's appeal is by running politicians who don't code instantly as 'educated coastal elites.' that doesn't mean you have to find someone pro-life or a racist or someone white or a male. you just need to find someone who ppl see as outside the system, not compromised by the dc corruption, a challenge to the party duopoly, etc, able to speak in a register that rings as 'authentic' in 2020.

like i don't think trump's cult of personality even has a whole lot to do with him qua his trumpness. it's all about how he ticks off the right people. that's easily replaceable. angela nagle (iirc) argues that the alt-right doesn't think he's competent or intelligence. in fact they like him because he's the opposite - a worthless troll & conduit for dank memes.

agreed but fp'd you for 'qua his trumpness'

tough but fair

ha! made me laugh...

Trump's aides did an "intervention" with him over his tweeting, WSJ reports: https://t.co/BNv5jAamEu pic.twitter.com/LgE3wbs5Lk

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 20, 2017

"we used to have a better class of criminal..." is my quote of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrdEts4cHLc

the easiest way to co-opt trump's appeal is by running politicians who don't code instantly as 'educated coastal elites.' that doesn't mean you have to find someone pro-life or a racist or someone white or a male. you just need to find someone who ppl see as outside the system, not compromised by the dc corruption, a challenge to the party duopoly, etc, able to speak in a register that rings as 'authentic' in 2020.

This is like a game of Guess Who where the only card left standing is The Rock.

the easiest way to co-opt trump's appeal is by running politicians who don't code instantly as 'educated coastal elites.' that doesn't mean you have to find someone pro-life or a racist or someone white or a male. you just need to find someone who ppl see as outside the system, not compromised by the dc corruption, a challenge to the party duopoly, etc, able to speak in a register that rings as 'authentic' in 2020.

This is like a game of Guess Who where the only card left standing is The Rock.

nobody ever suggests en masse slaughter of the problem voters

yeah they do, it's called the american health care act

i might as well take that to the trenchant social commentary thread myself

youd best, im not touching it

I'm hearing that the Mueller investigation is likely to take at least 2 years. So isn't there anything that will sort things out faster?
Fingers crossed for assassination after the Saudis hear what Stephen Miller has to say , but not holding my breath.

Also what is the story on expelling foreign ambassadors? Hearing that John McCain is calling for the Turkish guy to get the boot. But what the F*** is Kislyak doing still being in the country last week? Or did Trump just say it's all ok and nobody object? Would have thought that somebody would have had him expelled by now, presumably any other President would have called for a replacement?

Kislyak isn't known to have done anything illegal and expelling him would mean the US ambassador in Moscow getting kicked out, at the very least. The Turkish ambassador is highly unlikely to be removed.

kushner getting fingered by the FBI puts his support of firing + comey + support of pushing back at special counsel in a new light

had a thought in the shower that what we need next is FBI director PREET BHARARA

for real. instead though we will get CIA director VIKTOR MEDVEDCHUK

is it confirmed that kushner is the wh official "close to the president" who is being investigated?

i was hoping it was sessions.

no confirmation. other rumors suggest stephen miller or steven bannon

It's a trick question, no one is close to the president.

I thought Kushner was amateur at everything he was trampling on. So hardly official, or is that proffessional.
Would give me most joy right now if it was Sessions.
Bannon just needs to sink further into the drain they're already swamping.

able to speak in a register that rings as 'authentic' in 2020.

so not the register we heard much too loud and close to the mic in 2016

http://i64.tinypic.com/wbs5rp.png

"I'm hearing that the Mueller investigation is likely to take at least 2 years. So isn't there anything that will sort things out faster?"

part of me keeps thinking he'll just resign. make some excuse. blame the swamp until he dies. leave us in the capable hands of mike pence. and then he can say hey i was da president and eat steak and go golfing until he farts to death. of course it might not end up being his idea. he might have to resign before they bring charges against him.

i mean he's REALLY good at being a martyr. it's one of his greatest strengths. he was born to be a disgraced ex-president.

OTM. He could just be like Billy Joel and sell out Madison Square Garden (or the buttholeville equivalent) once a month to keep the money/praise flowing.

The tRUMP tHEATER of Branson MO

my money is on him resigning before the end of the year

Depends, how much are you willing to pay him to resign?

Mr. Trump dismissed talk about a split inside his White House between aides with a nationalist or globalist orientation. “Hey, I’m a nationalist and a globalist,” he said. “I’m both. And I’m the only one who makes the decision, believe me.”

Is that a real quote?

Surreal that I cannot tell the difference

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/04/28/donald_trump_now_says_he_s_a_nationalist_and_a_globalist.html

next step: Nobelist!

haha

man, tillerson looks out of his depth in this press conference with the saudi arabian foreign minister

this whole foreign trip has the feel of like, the brady bunch goes to hawaii for four episodes

"where do you get those pictures made? those are fabulous. do they ship overseas..."

http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2017/5/20/44b8cac01e1846f393b2b6b49fa69c45_18.jpg

uh oh, someone needs to tell donnie that in some countries, not every gold-plated thing you sit on is a toilet

Every photo of Trump looks like an artist's​ rendering.

haha I thought he had a longer-than-usual tie till I realized it was just the reflection

not wearing my glasses

they gave him some dookie rope too.

rehire Comey IMO

barring everything else, dude is showing a deadly amount of competence in his dealings with Trump

― PJD PDJ DPJ (DJP), Thursday, May 18, 2017 4:26 PM (two days ago)

it'll be interesting to see what the prevailing view on comey is after all this. there has obviously been a lot of (frankly) highly partisan speculation regarding his motives every since the email thing, but his dealings with trump make it seem like maybe he just does consider himself a true independent and made an honest miscalculation wrt to the email investigation announcement. and recall he was hired for his FBI job by another guy who liked to see himself as a post-partisan leader and made his own share of political miscalculations based on that

his dealings with trump make it seem like maybe he just does consider himself a true independent and made an honest miscalculation wrt to the email investigation announcement.

i'd like to believe that but man, what a terribly strange "miscalculation" that was, i mean, holy shit

but it's true that his actions ever since then have been about as reassuring as they could possibly be

With Comey it really does appear that both his calculations and his miscalculations are founded upon anticipating the sort of criticism he thinks he'd be opening himself to and the strength of his revulsion in regard to that criticism. This is a variation of self-regarding where his personal feelings are allowed to override sound procedure and good advice. So, he's a straight arrow, but he doesn't always aim himself toward the right target.

Also, Trump fucks up all strategy.